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" destruction or injury from tire,

PETER'HQWAT'soNg or ASHTABULA, oHIo. Leners Patent No. $5,720, and January 5, 1869.

naPRovED RAIrNvAY-CAR no Bewahren-naso an um@ Lessen-Paten: and man; pm or uw same.;

' hula, in the county of Ashtabula., and State of Ohio,

have invented or discovered a new and useful Improvement in Railroad-Gars, for the transportation of persons and property, of which the following is a'full and exact description.

The transportation of persons and property on raili as heretofore constructed, mainly of roads, in cars, wood, is subject to fre-quent accidents and hazard of by reason of the'combustible and easily-inflammable nature of the wooden materials of the cars. Explosion of a lamp, overturning of a stove, carelessness in the use of lights, and other casualties, in themselves of little importance,

-citen occasion calamities,- loss of life, and loss of or injurjmioV property, bycausiug the conagiation of cars, which might be avoided but for the inammable and combustible nature of the Wooden materials 'of their structure.

f constructed wholly of metal are not liable to these disasters, but although long known, and advantageously used' for some purposes, such cars have used for general traic, because, for suchpurposes, they are subject to serious objections.

not been extensively AFor general railroad-traine, cars constructed, except as' to their runningfgean chiey of natural wood or lumber, are generally used, and upon the whole pre-- ferred, notwithstanding their liability to conflagration and the disasters mentioned.

A plastic material,I composed of sawdust, or vegetable or animali fibre, united by an uniuflammable cef meut',has been moulded into suitable shapes, and proposed for the construction. of railroad-cars.

This material, although fire-proof, for making cars without a sacrifice ot'. the-advantages of natural wood, or ordinary lumber, 'and therefore it has not been adopted for that purpose.

My improvement is designed to preserve all the advantages of the natural wood or lumber commonly emplcyed in the structures of railroad-cars, and to remove or diminish the danger of conlagrat-ion, hyusing in the lconstruction of such cars natural wood'or lumber made uninammahle, wholly, or in great degree, by impregnating or charging the wood with. silicates, or other matter having little. or no combustible or inammable quality, and without otherwise changing the .ordinary materials, forms', or dimensions of such cars.

It has long been well known that by charging or im' pregnatiug wood with silicate of lime, or other inco1`nbustible or uninilamm'able substances, a quality is thereby imparted to wood which makes it non-inflammable,

or slow -to ignite, and'dificult to burn, so that it may successfully resist iiame or iii-e brought into contact with it, that would quickly conflagrate and insure the destruction bf prepared# the p for preparing silicates and other l cate solution to the ood not thus charged, impregnated, o r

cannot used.

materials suitable for charging wood, to lessen itslin' ammablity and eombustibility, and the processes for charging or impregnating wood with such nou-inflammable substances, are well description-of them here would render this specification unnecessarily prolix. `It Ais sufficient, for practical purposes, to say that one or more tanks should be provided, of proper dimensions, to receive the long and heavy timbers of va carfame, and one or more tanks, of proper dimensions, to receive the shorter and .lighter pieces of wood required inthe construction of a car.. p

In these tanks the wood should be laid in open order, by inserting narrow strips beneath and between the several pieces, to allow the impregnating-uid to'fiow eely around them, as air flows'l around boards piled in the usual manner' to season. For the purpose ofheating its contents, such tank should be provided .with a coil of steam-pipes. A cock shouldbe tted to th pipes, to admit steam' into the tank whenrequird. "W1 V If it be required to impregnate thev wood with great rapidity, strong iron tanks, capable of bearing airin-l ternal pressure of about two square inch, should be provided, with appropriate devices-for charging and duids, and the wood'toj-be impregnated. v If a slower process should-be'deemed sufficient, inA such cases tanks made of plank have been found to answena .good purpose, as Athe `impregnation may effected without artificial pressure, bysoaking, steep ing, and boiling the wood in the liquids a longer time.l Aer piling in a tank, as described, .the wood to be treated, and securing it from( floating, by clamps or other anti-combustible substance, vin a state of fluidity,- (a solution of silicate of soda inwater being preferred,`) should h'e poured into the tank until `the-wood tc'be impregnated or charged is covered. v

Th silicate solution may be prepared by taking strong silicate of soda, in the usual form 'of sirup, one part by measure, and two like parts of soft water, and stirring them together until well mixed. This solution or impregua the wood. l

If, before pouring the silicate solution iutothe tank,

peature, throughout its whole K mass, reached 212 Fahrenheit, and while thus hot, the wocd should suddenly be ooded with the silicate solution, thel impregnation would be much accelerated. The -wood should not he left to soak or steep in thc silicate solution until it is too deeply penetrated.

The wood for the frame,

c ar not liable to exposure to dame, or to greater .heat than scattering sparks produce, would, in general', be

`suiliciently 'protected by depth of 'one-twentieth of an inch known in the arts, a full.

other suitable means, a quantity of silicate ofsoda, or

should be immediately poured .into the tank, to charge the wood in the tank should be steamed until its teinand' for those parts of the.

the penetration of the siliwhile the wood for those parts of: the more exall respects, to the same treatment.

After the wood has been thus charged or penetrated with the duid silicate, the solution should be drawn out ofthe tank, and the wood partially dried, by exposure to the air, or', if that is not quick enough, by 'steam-heat.

After being thus about half dried,` a strong solution of chloride .of calcium, or chloride of lime, in water, should be poured into the tank, in quantity suiiicient to cover the wood. vHeat should then be applied, by means of the steam-pipes, to boil .the solution, after which the heat may be withdrawn, and the contents of the tank allowed to cool. Y

The calcium-chloride, by this p rocess, will penetrate the wood, and coming into contact with the sodaasiliy cate, these compounds will mutually decompose, and the lime of one will combine with the silica of the other to form silicate of lime, leaving the chlorine and soda to'unite, and form chloride of sodium, or common salt.

llhe lime-silicate being a iiinty, and practically in'- soluble compound, remains in the wood, lling its pores,

and eneasing its fibres, while the salt ls easily soluble in water, Vand can be dissolved and washed out. i

Test-blocks can, asin the case of charging the wood with'the silicate, be examined from time to time,l to

ascertainwhen the boiling has been continued longv enough to cause the chloride-solution to ldecomposev the sdafsolution.

The next step in the, process is to withdraw the chlorideofcalcium solution from the tank, and then to fill the-tankwith water, to dissolve out the salt. The water of the tank should, after a -few minutes, be run out, and the tank refilled with fresh water, .which, after a longer time, should, in turn, be run off, and the tank again reiilled,andheat applied until it boils.'

The examination'of test-blocks, las before, will show when the salt is dissolved out of the wood, at which time the heat should. be shut off, the water withdrawn',A and the wood taken out of the tank and dried, when it will be ready for use in the construction of cars.'

If, in drying the impregnated Wood, there should be danger of season-checking,.it may be guarded against by applyingglue,'sizing, or other suitable covering, to the ends of the pieces. Y

The wood lmay be cut into the proper dimensions for theseveral parts of a car, before impregnation, and these parts may sev'erally be dressed and fitted together .preparatory'to impregnation, Or if, in any case, it should be found more convenient to put together certain parts of a car, as doors, sash-frames, seat-frames, panel-work, orcther parts, preparatory to impregnation, it would only be necessary to vary, in a corresponding manner, the dimensions of the'tanks and other means and appliances, vto adapt them to thesizes and forms ofthe parts tofbe treated.

In like manner the ,whole'body of a car might be impregnated after having first been yconstructed of unprotected wood, by dipping its sides alternately, or immersing it bodily in a tank cf' the impregnating-iuids When such modes of applying impregnatinglnids are inconvenient, the wood-Work to be iireproofed might be charged with the fluids by washing, or other con- -yenient 'and ,wclhknown modes of applying such uids to and incorporating them with the surfaces of wocdwork. The'result aimed at being to re-proof the Woodwcrkof cars, to protect it against conflagration, it is immaterial, so far as this result is concerned, whether the re-prooling "be accomplished before the wooden materials are dressed or tted, or after; or after they have been partially puttogethcr or after they have been dressecbtted, and built into cars; hence, this improvement is applicable to existing cars, as well as to such as may b constructed hereafter.

It is necessary, in th'e case of old preparatory to iiresproofing their wooden material, to remove paint, varnislngreasavand other covering-matter from the wood-work. by scraping, washing with water, naphtha,

alkaline solutions, or other equivalent means of cleansing the wood', so as to permit the free penetration of the'iire-prooling fluids.

To guard against impairiug the strength of ltheir frame-timbers, upon which the strength of cars greatly depends, by the chemical or mechanical action, upon the fibres of the wood, of the salts employed in the reprooflng solutions, these frame-timbers should not be penetrated throughout their Whole mass by the fire. proofingl materiels, nor more deeply than required-for their protection against tire, which, in most cases, would be accomplished by incorporating the silicate with a thin .outer layer or crust of these parts, the frame-timbers being least exposed of any part of the car to immediate. danger of combustion.

I have described one process, among manythat are well known in the arts, for impregnating or charging wood with fire-proofingl materials, and have-shown in what manner it may-be applied in the construction of railroad-cars, for the better protection of persons 'and property transported therein from danger of oonilagration.

Others of suchyknown processes, with their approprate materials, apparatus, and manipulation, may be, employed in `some cases with good elect. 4 Such variations, however, are mere questions of practice, and

must be left to the judgment of constructors, as my.

improvement is not dependent'upon or confined .to any .special kind-of impregnating-material, or process for i the applicationof such material,`. so that substantially the same result be attainedby substantially the mod. of operation herein pointed out. f

The annexed drawing represents an ordinary railway freight-car, in which the box A and the frames B of the trucks are made of wood, fastened with metal.

lThe-wheels O, with their axles, journal-boxes, the'- springs, and 'other parts of the running gear, are made of metal. These parts are all constructed of the usual form and dimensions, but the wooden materials .are charged orimpregnated with silicate of lime, for' protectlou against taking fire', and thereby making vthe transportation of combustible property, by means o f such a car, safer.. against injury or loss by lire.

My lire-proof improvement applies to railroad-ca for all purposes inthe construction of which ordinary lumber, c., timber sawed into scantling and boards is used Cars constructed upon my'improved plan have all the useful properties of ordinary wooden cars, and have, in addition, the advantage of being little if at all liablcto be ignited by sparks, the upsetting of a lantern or a. stove; but if, from any cause, they should be ignited, they would not readily ameand burn goods or passengers; and, in the event of. any part of the Wood-,work being heated by contact with aburning body,it would only slowly char, and, on the removal of such burning body, would soon cease to burn, byreason of its having been enabled, as already described, to resist active combustion.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure 4 .by Letters Patent, is-

The said improved lire-resisting. railroad-car, with its body made of wood, for the better protection of persons and property in transit, substantially as herein described.

P. H. WATSON. Witnesses:

O. BOOTH, L. A. TYNGH. 

